BaL 28.04.18 - Brahms: Symphony no. 1 in C minor

[visualnickmos]

Err, donning my record-geek anorak, i)
with the so-called Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for (UK) Columbia in 1928/29;
ii) with the LSO in 1939 for HMV

There is nothing 'geeky' about having a brilliant memory for facts and dates... I admire you.

The Weingartner is an amazing set. I stumbled across it way, way back in the ubiquitous HMV ever- running sale. I don't usually take a lot of interest in 'old' recordings but this one is an exception. Fabulous playing, as well as excellent sound for it's time. I thoroughly enjoy dipping into it.

[verismissimo]

Err, donning my record-geek anorak, Stokowski recorded in 1927 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, released on RCA. To hear an excerpt:

http://www.stokowski.org/1927_Electrical_Recordings_Stokowski-1.htm

And Bruno Walter recorded it with the VPO in 1937 for HMV

Both these recordings are available from Andrew Rose at Pristine Classical

And how could I have forgotten Weingartner (especially as I cited him in an earlier post):

i) with the so-called Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for (UK) Columbia in 1928/29;
ii) with the LSO in 1939 for HMV

Just the right info. Many thanks Highlander.

[verismissimo]

Just for you, verism -

I have Loughran, Karajan x 4, Boult, Furtwangler, Celibidache, Toscanini (NBC) and Horenstein.

Where did that come from, ferney?

Thanks anyway.

[Beef Oven!]

Where did that come from, ferney?

Thanks anyway.

Was thinking the same, but ferney's on the money!!

[Barbirollians]

Just for you, verism -

I have Loughran, Karajan x 4, Boult, Furtwangler, Celibidache, Toscanini (NBC) and Horenstein.


Kea - interesting comments, and a fascinating new possibility creeps to my mind. I'll need to check some scores before I say any more.

No Walter or Klemperer ???

[jpegasus]

And how could I have forgotten Weingartner (especially as I cited him in an earlier post):

i) with the so-called Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for (UK) Columbia in 1928/29;
ii) with the LSO in 1939 for HMV

There's an even earlier Weingartner, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmBP9B8Gdjg

Looking up the catalogue numbers brought up the British Library Archive:

https://sounds.bl.uk/Classical-music/Brahms/026M-1CL0050792XX-0100V0

The timings differ by nearly two minutes - a mistake somewhere?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No Walter or Klemperer ???

Had them both on LP/Cassette/CD in the past, and (I think) can remember them very well. The recording I've never heard, but am most interested in and keep intending to buy is the Szell.

[Pulcinella]

Had them both on LP/Cassette/CD in the past, and (I think) can remember them very well. The recording I've never heard, but am most interested in and keep intending to buy is the Szell.

Me too.
So I've just bought the set!
Available singly from £1.55 (plus p+p):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Symphony-Variations-Hungarian-Dances/dp/B000026FKE/ref=sr_1_6?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1524722897&sr=1-6&keywords=Brahms+szell

or in the complete set now for £17.94 (plus p+p) since I snapped up a cheaper one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Symphonies-Szell-Johannes-Brahms/dp/B000025TZQ/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1524722897&sr=1-4&keywords=Brahms+Szell

PS: I see that Firebrand, in a review of the set, thinks more highly of two other Szell recordings of number 1.
Oh well, bought the set now!

[HighlandDougie]

Me too.
So I've just bought the set!
Available singly from £1.55 (plus p+p):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Symphony-Variations-Hungarian-Dances/dp/B000026FKE/ref=sr_1_6?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1524722897&sr=1-6&keywords=Brahms+szell

or in the complete set now for £17.94 (plus p+p) since I snapped up a cheaper one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Symphonies-Szell-Johannes-Brahms/dp/B000025TZQ/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1524722897&sr=1-4&keywords=Brahms+Szell

PS: I see that Firebrand, in a review of the set, thinks more highly of two other Szell recordings of number 1.
Oh well, bought the set now!

Or if you see this set (as I did in HK) and feel a compelling urge to buy it - and get both the Cleveland recordings of the 1st:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Complete-Symphonies-George-Szell/dp/B071XZ1CHT/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1524728667&sr=1-1&keywords=brahms+symphonies+szell+sacd#customerReviews

Worth every penny/cent might be a bit strong but a distinct sonic improvement on my rather battered LPs. The Szell/Cleveland Beethoven cycle on SACD awaits me in Disc Plus when I go back to HK next month. And, for Szell fans, there is in the offing:

https://www.amazon.de/George-Szell-Complete-Album-Collection/dp/B079VD2YRP/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1524729115&sr=1-1&keywords=george+szell

[jayne lee wilson]

Improvising a few thoughts as to the C Minor Symphony itself…..

Some time ago I began to feel reluctant to face the Brahms 1st. Like many I once thrilled to the balance and contrast between the craggy surging melodies and towering climaxes of the outer movements, the gentle intermezzi-style of the middle two. Perhaps exhausted by too many overweight, monumental, over-emphatic slow introductions (pounded out as if all at ff or fff, which they shouldn't be), and then having been overwhelmed by that extraordinary finale once too often... it seemed exhausted and exhausting. (I recalled Lutoslawski saying that experiencing some of the great 19th-Century Symphonies, whilst he admired them and acknowledged their greatness, left him feeling as if he'd overeaten).

Emotionally or musically, I always felt that in its facing-up-to and coming-to-terms-with his great symphonic predecessor, the sense of a huge and strenuous breaking free from that overshadowing, overwhelming influence, the Brahms 1st was distinct and separate from its three successors; creating it had freed him to make those last three so full of those essentially Brahmsian singing lines, dancing rhythms, a lighter, more fluid, often discursive and innovative symphonic style. (Already there in the lovely Serenades, of course, by some distance my favourites of Brahms’ early works…).
Interesting too, that the only other orchestral work (**) expressing such a sense of agonised struggle and (self-)overcoming, is the 1st Piano Concerto, which of course went through several creative metamorphoses, one of which was…. as a four-movement symphony. I wonder if this was also in D Minor, as an attempted answer to… that overwhelming 9th. But perhaps he felt it was too soon for such a reckoning.

“Beethoven’s 10th”?
Many a true word…..

(**) One may feel that a handful of chamber works exhibit something similar, the darkly struggling Op.51/1 C Minor Quartet most of all, which gives on to the at once more inward, reflective yet more playful Op. 51/2, rather as the 1st Symphony is followed by the 2nd.

[Karafan]

I recently had some new CD shelving and was finally able to alphabetically arrange those discs purchased in the psst 4/5 years. To my amazement, Brahms easily came out on top, numerically speaking, so along with the ones already purchased I have a lot of the 1st Symphony and am not currently looking for more!

Of those I have, my favourites are Klemperer/Philharmonia, Barbirolli/VPO, Haitink/Boston SO and Karajan/BPO (the live 1988 London performance). A special mention to for the BPO/Jochum 1950s recording. And the Concertgebouw/van Beinum while I think about it.

Yes, that October 1988 live Karajan first is earth shattering and eclipses any of his numerous studio/video recordings! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No...rajan+brahms+1

[Karafan]

Anyone for Cantelli/Philharmonia? Moments of it still send shivers down my spine. Shame its only in Mono.

And I had quite forgotten how good the Toscanini 1st was with the same band from the RFH (irrespective of trying to disassociate myself from the thought of him deflowering the pure English maiden of the Philharmonia as reported by Legge - I wonder what the #metoo movement would have made of the old letch!?). https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Symp...scanini+brahms

[Barbirollians]

Yes, that October 1988 live Karajan first is earth shattering and eclipses any of his numerous studio/video recordings! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No...rajan+brahms+1

when I first heard it I had to keep replaying the coda in the finale - absolutely thrilling and mind boggling.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, that October 1988 live Karajan first is earth shattering and eclipses any of his numerous studio/video recordings! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No...rajan+brahms+1

....and broadly the same reading live in Tokyo from May 1988 in good, though not exceptional, sound...I haven't the Testament for comparison...Highland Dougie perhaps...?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Concert-1988-Mozart-Brahms/dp/B00144661S/ref=pd_bxgy_15_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AFSSASV3CSPRHWJV6AE5

It deserves its legendary reputation of course (I listened live to the 10/88 RFH one on Radio 3 and was amazed at the time, and in a daze afterward), but is exactly the kind of hefty, monumental Brahms sound that I found so discouraging later. But surely you can't try to repeat an experience such as this performance offers? Isn't it just too intense played this way, for home listening over and over? I taped the RFH broadcast but never got through it all again...I simply couldn't.

A personal view as ever, but there always seems to me a dilemma or paradox at the heart of such extraordinary live experiences, once they are released on record... as if, once they've really taken you to the limit, it can feel like a betrayal to try to do it again.

I once heard Simon Rattle say in a Radio 3 interview (concert interval 1990s) that the desire, or attempt, to repeat a special musical experience is something akin to pornography... an extreme, perhaps controversial, way of putting it, but I think I got his (disconcerting) point.

[Arnold Bax]

And apparently the period performance of Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players on EMI Reflex has also been deleted, which of course I have on my heaving shelves. A shame...

Wow! The SCO/Mackerras has fallen out of the catalogue. A favourite of mine.